


Afterlife

by LoveMeSomeRafael



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: I Don't Even Know, I have No Excuse, I wasn't even in a mood, In fact don't tell anyone but I was at work minding my own business, M/M, Oh I give up it wrote itself, So uh... they're dead but it's not an AU really it's just the future of Barisi, what the actual hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-23 23:41:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21328600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveMeSomeRafael/pseuds/LoveMeSomeRafael
Summary: They always expected that Rafael, being older, would go first.  But he didn't.  When he does, Sonny's there to meet him.  No, really.  That's what this is.  *Mood*
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 38





	Afterlife

I knew it would be him. I was anxious and unsure - after all, nobody knows for sure what happens - but I wasn’t afraid because I knew it would be him who met me here. And it is. He looks just like I expected him to, although I don’t know exactly what I mean by that, because he doesn’t look like he ever looked when we were alive. Anyway, “look” is a strange word to use here, because it’s something you do in the world, with eyes. Here, it’s more of a feeling, like the way he looks makes me feel the way he looked in the world always made me feel, if that makes any sense. 

I had always imagined we would cry in this moment, when we were together again, this time forever. I imagined we would cling together and sob and gush about how much we’d missed one another. But that’s not how it is. We don’t cry. We laugh. We rejoice. We don’t look back at all. Everything before is small, irrelevant except for what we learned. All of that was so ephemeral, like everything had been made of fog. Even our love had been ephemeral compared to what exists here, because this place _is_ love. 

Still, it’s him, and we’re side by side again, and we’re whole. I can’t explain what that means. I’m whole, and he’s whole, and we, together, are whole, and it isn’t three separate things, but it isn’t one thing, either. This place, it can’t be understood by the rules of the world because the world is so very limited, so very small. 

I remember how surprised I’d been when he died first. He was years younger than I was, which meant that, naturally, he would outlive me. That was what we both understood. What we planned for. And I remember how, in amongst the terror and the rage and the howling pain, there was this core of just plain surprise when I was left alone. I had never for one second contemplated going on without him. We hadn’t been apart once we’d come together, and I never expected to be apart from him in the world. I figured I’d have to wait for him here but, for some reason, I just expected that it wouldn’t hurt to be here, waiting. Turns out I was right, but it wasn’t me who waited. It was him. 

I was selfish about it, too. I just didn’t deal with it. I mean, I did the things that had to be done to take care of his body and to commit his soul to God, but I didn’t do anything else. Everything he owned, all his clothes and his books and his toothbrush and all the flotsam and jetsam of his life, just stayed where it was, all around me, as though he was going to walk into the room in a minute. Of course it did. I wasn’t expecting to be without him for long. 

So, selfish as I was, I just left all of that for our kids to deal with. I figured it would even be a little easier to rid the apartment of both our belongings at once, rather than one at a time. They were a little concerned, and I know they talked about confronting me about it, but they didn’t. Queen Victoria slept beside a picture of Prince Albert and had his clothes laid out for him every day for the rest of her life, even though he died forty years before she did. All I did was not bother to get rid of my husband’s things after he died. I never even considered it. Why would I ever want to live not surrounded by him? Which, I suppose, is why our kids left me alone about it.

Anyway, I don’t think any of us expected me to outlast him by much. I had no desire to. What was left for me to do, really? Besides which, all the color and taste went out of the world for me when he went out of it. Sure, I still loved and enjoyed our kids and grandkids. I still read some good books and did some laughing. I actually discovered a new brand of scotch. But it was like the world had become a waiting room. Comfortable and with some lovely diversions, but not the point. He was the point. We were the point. 

I had no sense that tonight was going to be the night. I used to think that one of God’s greatest mercies is that we don’t know when or how we will die. But for those of us who are left behind, for whom the light has gone out of the world and is shining somewhere else… I don’t know. I don’t know what I would have felt had I known. In any event, tonight I sat in my reading chair and I re-read one of my favorite books and had a couple of glasses of that new scotch. 

And then I just… was here. And so was he. And we were whole again. Somewhere, very close by, are my _mami_ and a bunch of other people I’ll be happy to see again. Of course, He is here, everywhere, and He’s all that matters. But I guess, in His mercy, He gives us this time with those we loved in the world, to help us get our bearings before we join Him and all the others. And I somehow know that my love and I will be back here, to meet our kids and grandkids when they come. Everyone is greeted by those they most love, those who are _home_ for them.

For me, that is him. And here he is, and we are whole, and laughing together.


End file.
